December 23, 2010

Top 5 Worst New Acts of 2010

Your calendar might not tell you, but today is Festivus. It's the pre-Christmas celebration that is for the rest of us. Besides the Feats of Strength, the most important part is the Airing of Grievances. I take complaining and bitching to an art form. This year for my post about the sucky parts of 2010, I want to spotlight the new acts that have intruded onto the music scene.

There was no shortage of bad music flung upon the general public. A majority of this music will be honored with a Grammy, a platinum record or played on a Thanksgiving Day float.

Alas, I am one man. I can only do so much. Here are five acts that I think need to go far away. They range from hip hop, pop, indie, punk and just WTF awful.

5. Waka Focka Flame -- Besides having the worst rapper name of all time, this Atlanta-based rapper is just one of many reason why I can't listen to rap music any more. I wish one day there is a voice of dissension among the rappers that stands-up and says that the genre is horrible. Remember well De La Soul use to call out crap like this. I'll just stick to listening to my Old School albums. As for Wacka, try giving him a listen and see how far you get. I know, I know. I'm not the target audience. But come on, Wacka, how about forming a beat on a song?

4. Ke$ha -- I get it, it's Top 40 music. It's produced by committee, marketed towards a demographic and has no sense of any true artisty. It's fast food -- disposable, mass-produced and not good for you. It keeps people in the music industry employed. It's a factory, and it's not going to change. Can the industry create pop stars that are at least good-looking and sexy? She looks like a horse in drag. It's a crass comment, but if the music isn't suppose to be taken seriously, then I'm not. She reminds me of those annoying chicks in high school who pretended to own the school by being a bad ass. You see them 10 years later, and they look sad and dejected because high school was the peak of their life. That's Ke$ha, except she's still in high school mode. When she's playing state fairs and playing Club DoucheBag, then we can all laugh at her.

3. Das Racist -- The most annoying local act we have here in the tri-state area. If you can't stand the whole Brooklyn thing, you can look at Das Racist and vent your disgust at them. Basically, you have a few stoners who try to rap around the most mundane aspects of their lives and then think they are the shit for doing so. "Hey everybody, we rap about cheese. That makes us different, yo." If you can understand anything that they are saying with their lazy delivery over simplistic beats, then you're a better man then me. They were denied entry into London and sent back. They said it was for their political views. Yeah, like the British government cares what a bunch scenesters have to say. Their stance on Taco Bell is truly controversial.

2. New Politics -- Let me give you a little insight into my inbox. I get maybe 100 e-mails a day that are press releases about bands I've never heard of and probably won't ever care about. They are the standard mail merge templates so as to fool me into thinking it's a personal message for me. Once a while, I get a persistent request that will just build and build. This year, it was on this Copenhagen band that relocated to Brooklyn. Just to get their people off my back, I watch the "Yeah Yeah Yeah" video. I think around the 30-second mark I wanted throw my laptop out the window. I showed it to my music people who I trust just to make sure I wasn't the only one. The reaction was "WTF is this bullshit." And bullshit it is. It's basically some band trying to assimilate into the New York scene and ending up looking like assholes. The e-mails were like, "This band is redefining punk rock." Effffffff you. If ineptitude, trying too hard, idiotic lyrics, poor singing, blatant attempts to look like bad-ass hipsters and unfocused songs is the new rock, then I'm going to quitting music blogging to focus on writing Mad Men fan fiction.

1. Mike Posner -- Remember this guy? He was introduced, hyped and forgotten out before you can say "No Hit Wonder." Asher Roth held this spot last year, and it's the same scenario. Some young A&R guy thinks he has the next Justin Timberlake or Lady Gaga or Britney Spears or Eminem or Gwen Stefani or Usher or any successful singer. He finds the guy and puts the singer through all the typical motions. In this case, Posner is a frat boy from Duke who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy and next thing you know, MTV is hyping his Cooler Then Me song -- a cookie cutter, soulless pop song that showcases his lack of talent and thin voice. Sure, it might gotten him laid and VIP treatment, but when you try to be the next JT, you end up looking like a JT-wannabe. It makes you yearn for the days Color Me Badd were blazing the charts. The good news is that he faded away, and now he can concentrate on his douche-tastic style.

Comments

I have no idea what you even mean by 'the whole Brooklyn thing.' Moreover, if you actually put some effort into understanding Das Racist's lyrics, you might realize they're more deliberate, insightful, and talented than you give them credit for. They've expressed more refined views on music as a whole, politics, and culture than you yourself have (evidenced by the above blog post). Plus, the production on their most recent album was top-notch (see: Diplo, Scoop Deville, Kassa Overall, Devo Springsteen).
You make sweeping generalizations, bawse, and you're incredibly self-indulgent (no one cares about your email inbox). Based on your 'Hall of Fame' and the music you cover on this blog, it's easy to tell that your judgments about Hip-Hop (and thus Waka Flocka and Das Racist) are about as intelligent as Vampire Weekend's lyrics.

and, @dizzy, what's wrong with vampire weekend's lyrics? 'You've got ten fingers and you're going to use them all' is a pretty good philosophy if you ask me... If you're so into the 'worst bands' (and so not into all the best bands) on this site, why are you reading it???